Have contests and surveys to involve your clients in your business.  When you have a contest, be sure to get pictures of you with winners and send them out to your entire customer list.  When you conduct a survey, share the results with all those clients who participate and offer them a small reward for participating.

Retail businesses should have at least one private sale a year.  Personally, I prefer two a year.  When I say “private sale”, I mean truly private.  You close your business early, cover the windows with paper, and invite your customers.  Of course you encourage them to invite friends who are “just like them”.

When I was in the retail golf equipment business we had extremely profitable private sales.  We’d make them huge events.  We’d close our stores at 5 PM (we normally closed at 8 PM).  From 5 to 6 PM we’d cover the windows and put up the special sale tags for our private sale.

The event itself was from 6 to 9 PM.  We served snacks, soda pop, beer and wine.  We had putting contests, golf trivia games, long-drive contests in the stores where we had simulators, and drawings for door prizes every 15 minutes.  All the prizes were donated by the manufactures.  Our customers received private sale deals on golf equipment, shoes, and apparel.  Most importantly they had FUN and told their friends about it.  Of course their guests were all added to our list.

Other events we promoted were balloon sales, “wheel of fortune” sales, tent sales, super bowl sales, etc.  All had fun and entertainment as the common goals.

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This is an excerpt from my book, “9 Rules For Business Prosperity in the New Economy”.  The book may be purchased in both printed and Kindle editions at: http://arizonamarketingassociation.org/9-rules-business-prosperity/